Chapter 1 - The Dog Who Would Not Come Home
Gabriel Romano stood in the doorway of Evelyn Hart’s cottage with snow collecting on the shoulders of his black wool coat, looking at the one creature on his estate that had never disobeyed him.
Titan did not even lift his head.
The enormous black Cane Corso lay stretched across Evelyn’s worn rug in front of the fireplace, his wet coat shining in the amber light, his massive jaws resting on his front paws as though he had spent every winter of his life in that exact spot.
Gabriel’s voice was calm when he spoke again.
“Titan. Come.”
One ear moved.
Nothing else.
Evelyn tightened her fingers around the edge of the door. She had worked in the Romano mansion for seven days. In those seven days, she had learned three things with absolute certainty.
First, no one interrupted Gabriel Romano.
Second, no one refused Gabriel Romano.
Third, everyone was afraid of the dog.
And now the dog was refusing him from the middle of her cottage floor.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “He just came in. I didn’t invite him.”
Gabriel looked past her, studying Titan with an expression Evelyn could not read. He did not look angry. That somehow made her more nervous.
“People usually say that after they invite trouble inside,” he said.
“I promise I did not invite one hundred and fifty pounds of trouble into my living room.”
Titan exhaled heavily, as if offended by the description.
Gabriel’s eyes shifted to her.
The cottage was small. Too small for a man like him, whose presence seemed built for marble halls and rooms with armed men waiting at the walls. Evelyn suddenly became aware of everything around her: the chipped mug beside the sink, the blanket folded over the chair, the dented pot of soup cooling on the stove, the secondhand boots near the hearth with newspaper stuffed in the toes.
She had been given the cottage because no one else wanted it. The roof leaked near the pantry. The back door stuck when the weather dropped below freezing. The fireplace smoked if the wind turned wrong. But it was warm tonight, and for the first time in months Evelyn had nearly believed that warm meant safe.
Then Gabriel Romano arrived at her door.
“He belongs in the main house,” Gabriel said.
Evelyn glanced at Titan. “He disagrees.”
Gabriel almost smiled again, but this time the expression did not reach his eyes.
“That is new.”
The way he said it made Evelyn look more carefully at the dog. Titan’s body remained loose, but his eyes were open. He was not sleeping. He was watching Gabriel, not with fear, but with a kind of exhausted decision.
“He doesn’t want to go back tonight,” Evelyn said before she could stop herself.
Gabriel’s gaze sharpened.
“You know him for one afternoon.”
“No,” Evelyn said softly. “I know that look for much longer.”
The wind pressed snow against the windows. Behind Gabriel, the estate spread uphill in layers of money and power: the service courtyard, the stone archways, the glowing windows of the mansion, the north garage where black SUVs slept like animals with engines for hearts.
Gabriel did not ask her what she meant.
Instead, he stepped inside without waiting for permission.
Evelyn moved aside at once. The room seemed to shrink around him. Titan lifted his head now, but did not rise.
Gabriel crouched six feet from the dog. It was the first time Evelyn had seen him lower himself to anyone or anything.
“Titan,” he said, quieter.
The dog’s tail moved once against the rug.
Gabriel’s expression changed so slightly that most people would have missed it. Evelyn did not. The man was wounded by that single refusal.
“You have never chosen another roof over mine,” he murmured.
Titan blinked.
“Maybe,” Evelyn said carefully, “he does not think of the mansion as your roof.”
Gabriel turned his head toward her.
The room went colder without the fire changing at all.
Evelyn swallowed. “I mean… animals remember places by what happens there. Not by who owns them.”
For a long moment, Gabriel said nothing.
Then he stood.
“Who hurt his hip?”
The question landed so quietly that it took Evelyn a second to understand it had not been a question for show. He wanted an answer. Not a servant’s answer. A true one.
“I don’t know.”
“But you noticed.”
“Yes.”
“Calvin said he strained it chasing a deer.”
Evelyn looked at Titan’s hind leg. “That scar is older than a strain.”
Gabriel’s face hardened. “How old?”
“Months, maybe longer. It healed badly.” She hesitated. “And he reacts to metal near his neck.”
Gabriel turned toward the door.
For the first time since Evelyn had met him, something openly dangerous moved through him.
Not theatrical anger. Not raised voices.
A decision.
“Stay here,” he said.
Evelyn straightened. “With Titan?”
“With the door locked.”
He stepped outside and looked back once.
“If anyone from the main house comes here before I return, do not open this door.”
“What if it is Rosa?”
“Especially if it is not Rosa.”
Then he was gone.
Evelyn closed the door slowly. Her hand trembled as she turned the lock.
Titan rose from the rug and crossed the room with surprising silence for an animal his size. He pressed his head against her thigh.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “You know something is wrong.”
Titan moved away from her and stood near the pantry wall.
At first Evelyn thought he wanted food. She reached for a bowl, but the dog did not look at the stove. He lowered his head and sniffed along the baseboards, stopping where old wallpaper peeled beside a narrow storage cabinet.
“What is it?”
Titan scratched once.
The sound beneath his paw was not wood.
It was hollow.
Evelyn froze.
The cottage had once been part of the older estate, Rosa had told her. Built for gardeners before Gabriel renovated the main house. People said there were forgotten tunnels beneath the property from Prohibition days, but staff always turned stories into ghosts when they did not want to say the living names.
Titan scratched again, harder.
A strip of wallpaper tore loose.
Behind it was a seam.
Not a crack.
A door.
Evelyn stared at it, her pulse climbing into her throat.
“No,” she whispered. “Absolutely not. We are not discovering hidden doors tonight.”
Titan looked at her.
Somewhere outside, a car door slammed.
Not near the main house.
Near the cottage.
Evelyn grabbed the fireplace poker and backed away from the pantry wall.
Headlights swept across the frosted window, then disappeared.
A shadow crossed the curtains.
Someone stood on her porch.
Then three slow knocks struck the door.
“Miss Hart,” Victor Sloane called softly from outside. “Open the door.”
Titan’s growl filled the cottage.
Evelyn did not move.
Victor knocked again.
“I know the dog is with you.”
Her fingers tightened around the poker.
“Mr. Romano told me not to open the door.”
There was silence.
Then Victor laughed, low and unpleasant.
“Did he?”
Titan placed his body between Evelyn and the door.
From outside, Victor said, “That is unfortunate. Because there are things in this house Gabriel should never have shown you.”
Evelyn’s blood turned cold.
She glanced toward the hidden seam in the pantry wall.
Victor was not talking about the dog anymore.
May you like
He was talking about the cottage.
And somehow, Titan had known.
